First I want to say that I love this forum and I’m a big fan of all the agents out there who offer such great input.

I am venting here today. I am extremely saddened because I just found out that my salesperson license has been denied due to a filing of a “statement of issues”. I applied for my RE lic in June 2009. I answered yes to the question regarding felonies. I have one conviction in my 35-year life.

My lic application was eventually sent to the DRE’s Enforcement department and assigned to a deputy. In August I found out who the deputy was and when I called her to follow up she admitted that she had not looked at my file yet. She started working on it after my call. She finally sent me more forms which I filled out and mailed back promptly. I even did some leg work for the deputy by going to the courthouse myself and picking up documents that she was supposed to have requested already. I eventually received 6 more forms to fill out. A couple of the questions required detailed explanations which I typed in separate sheets of paper. I personally delivered this forms to the DRE office in Los Angeles. After that I called every week regarding the status of my application and the deputy kept telling me that it was still “in process”. Today I called and she referred me to an attorney in the Legal department. The attorney told me that he reviewed my file yesterday and that he had filed a statement of issues and that I should receive a copy along with a notice of defense in "a few weeks". At first I was not sure of what that meant but after questioning the attorney I knew that it meant that my license was denied but I would have 15 days from the receipt of the documents to request a hearing. I felt as if I was hit in the chest by a fastball when I heard this.

I was very upset but I still managed to ask the attorney a whole lot of questions. I was not satisfied with any of his answers because he seemed to hesitate quite a bit and offered very vague answers. It could be that I caught him off guard. I asked him if 100% of applicants that answer “yes” to the felony question have a statement of issues filed against them. I asked that he give me a “yes” or “no” answer but instead he said that there are criteria to follow. I asked him what the specific criteria are and he said that a conviction is one criterion. He could not give me anything else.

It was very painful for me to have to answer questions about this conviction in the DRE forms. I was convicted after I pleaded no contest. At the time of conviction the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. I ask myself, why did I have to go through this painful, grueling process of filling out so many forms and typing up so many explanations and of providing the DRE with all the court docs they requested if I was going to be denied automatically? Is it that they did not weigh my answers? Did they not weigh the fact that I have never had any prior or subsequent convictions to this? Why did they not contact my employer of 14 years to inquire about my character? I provided them with my employer’s info and they could have investigated. Why did they not give me any credit for the fact that I successfully completed my probation? Why don’t they care that the court granted an expungement for this conviction last summer? Did they even look at any of this? I'm inclined to believe that they didn't. I am really hating the DER.

Not all felons are denied. I don't know about California but I know a Real Estate Agent in Arizona that has a felony record. His conviction was at approximately age 22 and he received his Real Estate License at about age 32. He told me there are some automatic disqualifiers; Fraud, Larceny, Monetary theft etc... his conviction was a controlled substance conviction.

My guess is that if your conviction does not involve larceny, fraud or theft, you may eventually prevail and get a license, if you are squeakly clean and have rock solid references, but I wouldn't cry about wasted efforts if I were you. Society is not about to go out of its way to make life easy for convicted felons. It is too difficult dealing with those in the profession who are on their way to their first felony conviction, to lose any sleep over allowing someone the opportunity for a second at the expense of a client

Does the American Education System FAIL to make people aware of what the ramifications are of commiting a Felony?

Does it fail to make young people aware that some wrongful acts, that they might be tempted to perform, are of such a serious nature that they warrant making a statement to the individual which cannot be erased, nor forgotten about? They will be given a permanent reminder.

I doubt that our Teachers even know, so how can we expect them to teach what they don't know? Of course, we expect them to try to teach many other things that they don't understand . . . . and the evidence is that they often fail with the prescribed curricula. In this case, this subject matter is probably too uncomfortable to be put in the lesson plan of any CourseWork.

I'm not excusing anyone for their prior actions; but we read these stories so often and it would appear that the perpetrators were indeed ignorant of the life long consequences of what might have been a mere "spur of the moment" activity . . . . and which you cannot now go back and fix.

Years later, they all sound so much like the "Deer in the Headlights". Didn't Schools used to have a Course called "Civics" which covered mundane matters such as these? Aren't those Classes still mandatory . . . . or are they gone?

Getting so worked up shows you have not gained patience and control.

Calling every week and not allowing the process to happen shows cause for red flags. I think the process should take a long time as it makes people with convictions who want a quick license that are going to run a scam quit. The rest who have to go to a hearing,provide references,etc. and work at it to finally get approved shows they have learned patience and following protocol.

What has most likely happened is your application has showed red flags and they want a review before the panel. You still may not get the license.

Good luck

Your mistakes of the past are coming back to haunt your future. Being young and dumb is not an excuse, so you have to jump through the hoops to prove yourself.

I know a guy who runs a flooring company. He bid on a job at a pharmacuital(sp) production company. His was awarded the contract contingent upon DEA backround checks on all workers who would be present or have access to the facility.

Just so happens the owner spent time in prison in the 1960s for drug trafficing. He also had a couple of convicted felons on the payroll. Today in 2009 these are respectable people. They were all young and dumb and thought it would all go away.

The DEA said no security clearance would be granted to the company, so he lost the contract and it went to the next bidder.

He's always told us kids, that he made mistakes in his youth and he served his time; nearly 40 years later, it still comes back to bite him in the [censored].

Your anger is misdirected. DER is doing what they have to do to protect the public. They are giving you a chance to appeal their decision, so you still have a chance.

Azul

You don't sat what you were convicted of and you don't say how long ago so it is hard to guess what the problem is but I can emphasize. I had to go through the hoops 55 years ago because of a traffic citation that was bogus.

Long story got a ticket at 18 from a chp officer after midnight that thought I was the culprit that rapped his pipes as he passed the cops home each night as he went by. Ticket was for doing 65 in a 55 on a four lane divided freeway as I was returning from a night class. And in two days the legal limit was going to be 65.

Went to court, the two guys before me were a guy doing 40 in a school zone with kids present which was a 15 limit. the other guy was doing 55 in a 25 zone. Each was fined $10 so I thought what the heck I'll pay a few bucks and get out of there and go to my job. The judge asks guilty or not guilty, I say guilty, he said that will be a $50 fine, a $5 penalty assessment and one day in the county jail. I tell him what I think of his decision, he says 2 days in the county jail, I tell him his mother raised a @@@@^&# and he says 3 days, do you want to try for four, I of course was stupid enough to outline his stupidity and got the four.

My four days in jail was enough to put me on the DRE investigation list and temporary denial. But the gods are kind, I got my license, and later was able to nail the judge and some of his cronies for crimes I discovered while doing my due diligence on a large apartment complex. He went to jail, and I got to remind him of that day in court, which is what caused me to dig so deep when his name showed up.

Azul i feel for you not sure what the crime was but i have a problem with people being branded for life after paying for there crimes.(with some obviouse exceptions rape,etc) I would appeal and when the hearing comes up i would make sure i poured my heart out with examples of how you are different now or how that was a one time thing that you are sorry for etc etc etc etc.

Thank you all. I will definitely request a hearing. I was so upset when I first learned that my license was denied because I feel that I have done everything I possibly can to prove that I deserve it. If a judge from a court of law granted the expungement of my conviction, why would the DRE not take that into consideration? Besides my conviction has nothing to do with Fraud, Larceny, or any type of theft. But, I guess that does not matter now. I will wait for the notice of defense to come. I was told it could take weeks or months. I don’t understand why, but I’ll wait.

The claim about following up every week being a red flag is patently false.
On top of being a realtor, I also am a criminal defense attorney and in the process of getting licensed to practice law I had to go through a character & fitness investigation due to an impaired driving conviction right before I graduated law school. I kept them updated on the progress of my case throughout and when I met with them after I passed the bar they mentioned to me how much they appreciated that I kept in constant contact with them about my impaired driving conviction. Keeping in contact with the people who are handling your file absolutely do not raise a red flag. Quite the opposite, it shows you're staying on top of things.

Can be interpreted different ways from diligent to desperate. It's a matter of the person working the file and how they interpret it.

Then you should have answered "No" to the "ever been convicted of a felony?" question.

You were charged with a felony but convicted of a misdemeanor, if I understand your quote correctly. They didn't ask if you were ever charged of a felony - they only cared about felony convictions.

I would check on the misdemeanor/felony admission as well. You may just have made a typo.

On a better note, you'll need to be patient to work through this. If it were easy to be an agent, everyone would do it. There are lots of successful people that had to go through the same thing (just lookup the life story of Judge Mathis).

Patience is a key part of being an agent. In our line of work, it can take 30 days or more to get paid from start to finish. Getting the license is just the beginning. Best of luck to you :-)

I know exactly how you feel. I had a misdemeanor for petty theft. Im probation for 2 yrs and completed a 1 and a half. I passed my real estate exam over a year ago. I applied for my license and they denied me the license. I had to submit some documents from the court and fill out like 10 forms and it took them like 3 months to tell me to go to court for license. They ended up scheduling me to go to court in another 3 months.

As I arrived to court, I came prepared with with letters of recommendations from my friend, a broker of in the sacramento area, who is a top 5% producer across the nation and I told them I told them I did an internship for my friend. I also showed them that I'm about to attain an associate degree at a community college that I was currently in.

The prosecuter just briefly said "he doesn't think i have rehabilitated" and didn't even seem to take in consideration about anything that i did that was positive. I am 23 yrs old and I really wanted my license more than anything during that time. I prepared a 30 min speech and was denied my license in 2 mins =( The court location was 2 hrs away from my house too and I had to wake up 630 to drive our there to be there 9.

I learned that REOs is where the market is at from my friend which is why I wanted to jump in to real estate asap and my parents own investments properties which was why I decided to do real estate.

anyways enough of me yapping! GOOD LUCK with your LICENSE!

i'm curious. Did you get an expungement prior to applying for your license? Did you get denied your license when you had your record expunged?

I'm asking because I dont want to waste my time getting my misdremnor expunged and have my license denied again =( the california system is so STRICT !

Petty theft...

Funny. Amazing that you wonder that people would not be excited about letting you into their homes!

There was a 9 year old kid in the daycare center where I worked. He stole my wallet from my purse. I know it was him because the funny thing was, my husband and I bought the house where he and his family were tenants and the mother called me to ask me if I had left my wallet at the house when we were looking at it . She was packing up their stuff and found my wallet in her son's belongings. She of course would not believe he took it and didn't even offer to pay me for all the trouble I had to go to to cancel checks, get new credit cards, driver license, etc..not to mention the $60 cash I had in it for groceries that day.

Years later, that same kid, now 21, was finally arrested for breaking into some old lady's home and assaulting her and stealing her medications.

Even at 9 years old that kid was old enough to know better - and obviously he continued on the same path. I would FREAK if I found out that guy was now a real estate agent and had access to my home if it were on the market!

You were old enough to know better when you did it. Now you have to pay the consequences of your lawbreaking and total lack of regard for the personal belongings of others.

History of being a criminal??? Then really, real estate is not for you.

Unless of course you were framed and are totally innocent then I feel bad for you.